An Ordinary Life – Films – Visions du Réel

Une vie ordinaire

Alexander Kuznetsov
France, Switzerland, United States | 2024 | 93 min
World premiere
Language : Russian
Subtitles : English, French

Special Mention

A few years later, Alexander Kuznetsov reunites with the protagonists of his Liberation, the User’s Guide (VdR 2016), who are now free to lead their lives as they wish. While he dreams of their happiness, he accompanies them, powerless, down the path that is leading them straight to intransigent nationalism. An Ordinary Life is a film about loss, and grief.

An Ordinary Life unfolds at the very heart of contemporary history: Russia invades Ukraine in 2022, and any protest against the war is met with harsh reprisal. Alexander Kuznetsov's response is one of fear, shame and pain. How could the Russian people let this happen? In his previous film Bref manuel de libération (Jury Prize at VdR 2016), Kuznetsov followed the ordeal of two young women, Katya and Yulia, orphans wrongly interned in a neuro-psychiatric institute located in a Siberian province, their liberation marking the end of the film. We find them here, more or less at the same moment. Katya and Yulia rediscover their freedom, each taking flight and dreaming of a simple life: owning their own home, finding love, starting a family. Over several years, the filmmaker follows these two women's pursuit of happiness, in a country ruled by the iron fist of Putin, the new supreme guide of a nation fueled by fear, ultranationalist patriotism and preparations for the coming war. Kuznetsov watches helplessly as an implacable machination engulfs the population in silence, conjuring up the darkest spectres of history.

An Ordinary Life, 2024
We’ll be Alright, 2016
Territory of Freedom, 2014
Territory of Love, 2010